SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Dozens of water agencies and millions of families and farmers would be on the hook for building two giant tunnels to carry Northern California's water southward under new plans to shore up funding for Gov. Jerry Brown's $16 billion project.

The world will be vaporized in roughly 7 billion years, when the sun expands into an enormous red giant star and explodes across the solar system. Or, perhaps a 60-mile-wide asteroid will crash into Earth well before then, ending life as we know it.

German drugs and pesticides group Bayer said it would likely take until early next year to complete the planned $66 billion takeover of U.S. seeds group Monsanto , which it had previously expected to be under wraps by the end of 2017. The European Commission has been scrutinising the takeover with a deadline of Jan. 8. Bayer said in a statement it had asked the regulator for an extension to Jan. 22, to which the EU Commission responded by saying it would take a decision shortly.

Surrounded by the sleek hi-tech campuses and luxury condominiums of "Beijing's Silicon Valley", migrants from the countryside recreate village life, cooking in outdoor communal areas, playing cards and showering in the street. For months, the authorities have bricked up and torn down thousands of shops and homes that are deemed to violate Beijing's zoning laws as the government seeks to give the capital a facelift and limit the population to 23 million people by 2020. Migrants from China's relatively undeveloped southwestern region have lived precariously for two decades here in Zhongguancun -- which is also the base of hi-tech companies including Lenovo, Baidu, Tencent and Sohu, which help their own employees from other regions obtain legal rights to live in the capital.

U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman buys missile and rocket maker Orbital for about $7.8 billion in cash, giving it access to lucrative contracts with NASA and the U.S. Army. Roselle Chen reports.

A hopeful France set out at the United Nations Monday to persuade the United States to stay in the Paris climate agreement, as Donald Trump's administration insisted it was not changing gears. Gary Cohn, the chief White House economic adviser, reiterated Trump's opposition to the landmark accord as he met over breakfast with officials from other major economies at the start of the UN General Assembly, an annual week of diplomacy.

Technically, Todd Beaty and the rest of the team at Cruz Bay Landing should have left St. John more than a week ago. Nonessential occupants were asked to get off the island ahead of Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm that obliterated much of St. John, the smallest of the three U.S. Virgin Islands. That storm raged over the island earlier this month, but Beaty and his restaurant staff remain open, and they plan to stay open even as Hurricane Maria swirls toward the island. SEE ALSO: Hurricane Maria rapidly intensifies, aims for a rare direct hit on Puerto Rico Maria is a Category 5 storm that, if the island's luck sours even more, might steamroll whatever is still upright on Saint John this week. The storm is projected to track south of St. Thomas and St. John, which might spare the island from Category 4 or 5 intensity winds. Maria is more likely to make landfall on the island of St. Croix, but it'll probably still harass St. Thomas and St. John with powerful winds and buckets of rain. Even so, Beaty says it was "very easy" for him and his staff to decide to stay. "We actually have a goal and a focus and a meaning to be here," Beaty said. "That's what's kept us sane." He estimates around 1,000 people a day have come to get food from the restaurant since Irma swamped the island. Cruz Bay Landing and another restaurant Beaty said remains open — The Longboard — are feeding as many people as they can. The people who stayed behind Though the government implored residents to evacuate, many didn't have the necessary paperwork, or weren't healthy enough to do so. Some didn't have transportation to get to a ferry that would take them off the island, some have stayed because the animals they own couldn't be evacuated, and some simply don't have the money necessary to afford the transportation, food and lodging that evacuating often requires. Jeanie Williamson, who lives on St. John with her family but avoided Irma because she was visiting her daughter in Europe, said it took days for her husband — Starbo Stevens — to get in touch with her after the storm. Williamson is staying in Blueridge, Georgia, as Maria pushes toward the island, but her son — Shaun Brian Sells — and Stevens plan to outlast that hurricane, too. Sells and his wife looked at tickets off the island, but they were far more than what they felt they could afford. #Maria becomes an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane. Here are the 5 PM EDT key messages. https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/OdnpYWpA2I — NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) September 18, 2017 "I feel like they don't want to leave everybody, and they feel like they're gonna be OK," she said. "Their adrenaline's moving." Williamson's family got through Irma by staying in a concrete bunker on their property, but several wooden homes they'd built were nothing more than splinters after the storm. Williamson's bed simply vanished. But she says she'll be back, and, when she gets there, her family will go about building more homes on their property — concrete only now, and more tucked into the hillside. Essential personnel Right now, Cruz Bay Landing is helping those who stay by functioning as a Red Cross food distribution center. They're still getting food from their usual providers, though Beaty said the Red Cross is paying for the supply. Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the time being, the restaurant serves bag lunches and a hot meal from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Today they're serving rice, beans, and stewed chicken, but they change it up every few days. Beaty knows the island will still have plenty of people in need of food once the worst of Maria is over, and he figures he and his staff have become part of the "essential personnel" needed to get St. John through this month of hellacious storms. He and eight others at Cruz Bay Landing got through Irma, so now they're preparing for the same but hoping for something less devastating. Tiffany Shannon, the restaurant's manager, is one of those eight. She said the home she shares with her husband, Wade, is "no longer livable" after Irma, but they're staying at a friend's place while she shows up for work. "I've lived here for 18 years and this is my home," she said. "If I have to restart then I should do it at my home here on St. John." After Maria storms through, Beaty thinks it'll be maybe nine or 10 weeks before the restaurant can again function as normal. "I feel like the need is gonna be there for quite some time," he said. "We'll do it for as long as we're requested to." WATCH: Chainsaw wielding nun helps clean-up after Irma

President Trump will use his maiden speech to the U.N. General Assembly to condemn Iran, call for global action on North Korea, and unapologetically defend his nationalistic “America First” stance before wary world leaders, administration officials said. Chinese President Xi Jinping is skipping the annual diplomatic crush in New York, but Trump will at least implicitly criticize Beijing in his Tuesday speech for not doing enough to tighten an economic vise on North Korea.

SpaceX’s robotic Dragon capsule was set loose from the International Space Station today and returned to Earth with more than 3,800 pounds of cargo and experiments, including a set of live mice that will be studied after their stint in zero gravity. The trip marked the completion of SpaceX’s 12th space station resupply mission under the terms of its multibillion-dollar contract with NASA. “Godspeed, Dragon 12,” Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli said as the Dragon was released by the station’s robotic arm. Dragon’s parachute-assisted Pacific Ocean splashdown came five and a half hours later, at around 7:15 a.m. PT off the… Read More

Animals on both the large and small side of the spectrum face the most risk of extinction -- but for very different reasons, each with vast consequences for the planet, researchers said Monday. For big creatures -- including whale sharks, Atlantic sturgeon, Somali ostriches, Chinese giant salamanders and Komodo dragons -- people are the top threat to their survival, said the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed US journal. "Many of the larger species are being killed and consumed by humans," said lead author William Ripple, a distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University.

Environmentalists have sued a U.S. agency to try to stop it from allowing oil and gas drilling on a vast stretch of federal land in Nevada, where the government is reversing protections put in place nine ...

America’s Russia policy will be the main topic Tuesday at the hearing on Jon Huntsman’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador. Also on the agenda: the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which Huntsman backed but Trump and Putin opposed.

Two weeks after hurricane Harvey, Soni Herrera is trapped at her home – a home she and her family cannot yet live in. Like many of the tens of thousands of Houstonians flooded out of their houses, Ms. Herrera, her husband, Jaime, and their four children benefited from the indiscriminate bravery of her community during and immediately after the storm. Recommended: How much do you know about Texas?

These tacos get a healthy makeover by using turkey as the main lean protein. It all comes together with some beans, avocado, and a little cheese. Watch the video to learn how to make this easy weeknight dinner.

The moon is on Monday going through a remarkable celestial event—the only one of its kind in a 28-year window. In under 24 hours, the moon will pass in front of three planets and one of the sky’s brightest stars. The last time it obscured three planets in so short a period was in 2008, and the next will be in 2036.